Читать книгу Tasmina Perry 3-Book Collection: Daddy’s Girls, Gold Diggers, Original Sin - Tasmina Perry, Tasmina Perry - Страница 32

Camilla cursed herself. What had possessed her to take the lonely B-roads on the route back to London rather than the motorway? It had seemed like a good idea to drive through the pretty Lincolnshire countryside rather than down the busy M1, but now she was exhausted; all she wanted was to get back to the flat, creep under her goose-down duvet and drift asleep. That prospect seemed a long way off as she pulled her slate-grey Audi to a stop at a lonely crossroads, craning her neck to read a signpost. Dammit, even Bedford was still forty-eight miles away.

It was getting dark, a sooty dusk had seeped over the fields that stretched flat for miles on either side of her. She let the car window purr down, giving her face a blast of cold air. What a day, she sighed, glancing at the time on the dashboard clock: 8.35 p.m. It seemed a lot later. Camilla was used to long stressful days debating in court, but this was something harder, more personal. The Selection Weekend at the Tory Party’s residential centre in Melton Mowbray had been gruelling – more like a mental assault course than an away-day. Hours of interviews and psychometric testing to gauge her suitability as an approved candidate. Had she appeared ambitious or ruthless? Confident or cocksure? She had answered honestly on her views on Europe, foreign policy, education – but were they close enough to the party line? It was just the first rung on the political ladder and she really hadn’t thought it’d be so rigorous. There were so many duff MPs in Parliament; how they had managed to jump through all those hoops?

Feeling tired and thirsty, she reached over for a bottle of mineral water on the passenger seat, wedging it between her knees to unscrew the top. She took a long gulp, her heavy eyelids closing for just a moment as it soothed her gravelly throat. Opening her eyes again, she saw a large van approaching fast behind her, its headlights blaring in the dark. As she quickly tried to screw the lid of the bottle back on, it slipped from her grip and tipped over on her lap. Just then, the van moved to overtake her.

Its driver had misjudged the width of the lane and it came within inches of her Audi. Instinctively, she turned the steering wheel away, trying to pull her car as close to the side of the road as she could.

As the car’s wheels bounced off the verge, the water bottle rolled on her thighs, spilling cold ribbons of liquid over her Comme des Garçons trouser suit. Shit, she thought, reaching down to brush the water off the expensive fabric. Panicked and distracted, her eyes dazzled from the headlights, she noticed too late that the road was banking sharply left. Camilla slammed her feet onto the pedals, but it was too late. The car ploughed straight into a hedge.

In a split second, a decade-old memory dislodged itself from the back of Camilla’s mind. Another night, another country lane, another car out of control. Traces of blood smeared on the headlights of an old Renault. Her father’s face staring at her in fury. No! She screamed out loud, her body jarring against the steering wheel as the car skidded to a halt.

At first, she felt nothing. Then she was sucked back into the moment with a jolt. Physically, she was unharmed. The car had brushed the bushes aside and bounced to a halt in an open field. But she felt shattered. The memory had been unlocked, an awful truth that she realized in a flash could devastate her future. A flood of nausea seized her body as she yanked the car door open, vomiting violently on the grass. No one could ever know what happened back then, no one. She had not worked so long, so hard, to let it bring her down.

Behind her a car stopped at the side of the road and an old lady approached her battered Audi. ‘Are you all right, love?’ she asked cautiously, skirting around to the driver’s side where Camilla was sitting, her head hung hopelessly between her knees.

She nodded weakly and wiped her mouth with a proffered tissue, breathing deeply and rubbing her eyes as if erasing an image she did not want to see. She looked at the woman, then turned away, her eyes drifting off to the horizon where the sky was turning midnight blue.

‘I’ll be all right,’ said Camilla softly, her fingers squeezing into a tight fist. ‘I’ll be all right.’